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Vegetable meat printed in 3d. The patent is from an Italian researcher

Vegetable meat printed in 3d. The patent is from an Italian researcher

by Carla Andrea Fundarotto

A 3D printable meat that tastes like steak but isn’t. In fact, it is composed of plant products such as peas, algae and beetroot. 

The idea was born from an intuition of Giuseppe Scionti, 31, an Italian biomedical engineer who works and teaches at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, creator of a patent now taken over by Nova Meat, a Barcelona company that is developing alternative foods that make it possible to reduce farms and their heavy impact on the climate. “At the moment there are mainly two types of products on the market: veggie burgers and soy-based burgers that have the same fibrous consistency as a steak but a different taste. Our idea is to combine these two products into one”, explains Giuseppe Scionti, founder of Nova Meat.

How do you get 3D meat?

The recipe is simple. Using 3D printing, the vegetable slice is shaped by mimicking a crossing of filaments that resemble intracellular proteins in muscle cells. Startup Nova Meat has just closed a funding round to bring the product to market alongside 3D bio printers in restaurants.

The impact of traditional meat on the climate

Intensive animal husbandry consumes water and land, pollutes and often transmits antibiotics or estrogens contained in animal food to humans. According to Scionti, printed vegetable meat would be a valid and more reliable solution even than in vitro meat. “In vitro meat presents a very serious problem of timing and economic scalability, and we need a solution now. In addition, it should be noted that in vitro meat is grown with a feed based on fetal bovine serum, so it is also of animal origin ”, concludes Scionti.

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